A Family for the Holidays

“To me,” she said, once more, as if he were dim-witted.

“And who would you be?”

“I wou’ be me.” Again a statement of the obvious, only now his lack of understanding brought a frown to crinkle her cherubic face with its rosy cheeks, button nose and ruddy-pink lips.

Dax had no experience or knowledge or contact with children, so he had nothing to gauge how old this one might be. But it was beginning to sink in that, despite her self-assurance, she was very young.

“What’s your name?” he said more succinctly.

“Kayla Jane Solomon. Wus yur name?”

“My name? My name is Dax.”

“Tha’s a funny name.”

“Funny or not, that’s what it is.”

“I haves a friend who gots a dog whose name is Max. Like Max, only Dax?”

“Right,” he said, stifling a grin.

“Dax,” she repeated, trying it out.

“Kayla Jane Solomon,” Dax countered. “And how old are you, Kayla Jane Solomon?”

“Free.”

Had she not held up three short fingers, he would have thought she was answering with something other than a number.

“You’re three,” he said. “You’re Kayla Jane Solomon and you’re three years old.”

“Free and some months,” she elaborated. “But I can never memember how many.”

“And where exactly did you come from?” Dax asked.

“The shop,” she answered simply.

His building shared a connecting passage with the building directly behind it, and in that other building was the Clip ’n Curl beauty salon. Since his back door and the garage door that opened onto the alley were both closed, the Clip ’n Curl had to be the shop she was referring to. Although no one had ever come in here that way before.

“Won’t someone be looking for you?”

“I need a bike,” she reminded him, refusing to be deterred any longer from her goal.

Dax didn’t really know what to do with her. He was bored out of his mind, and this tiny tot was more entertainment than he’d had in a while, so he decided to play along. Temporarily, at any rate.

“How are you going to pay for it?” he asked.

Kayla Jane Solomon dragged the purse nearer to her, unzipped it and produced a lady’s wallet from inside. She opened the wallet, took out the paper money and held it up to him. “Is this ’nough?”

Dax shook his head. “Sorry. Bikes this big cost a lot more than that.”

Kayla replaced the money in the wallet, the wallet in the purse and then looked up at him again, still undaunted and now flashing him a smile that was riddled with mischief.

“Maybe you could jus’ gib me one, then,” she suggested sweetly.

And once again, Dax Traub had to laugh in spite of himself.

“I have a minute now, Kayla. Do you still want a cup of hot choc—”

Shandie Solomon came up short when she stepped into the Clip ’n Curl’s break room. Barely fifteen minutes earlier she’d left her three-year-old with a snack and Kayla’s favorite DVD playing on a portable DVD player at the table where the stylists sat to eat and chat when they didn’t have a customer. Only now, Kayla wasn’t there.

“Kayla?” Shandie called from the center of the break room. Sometimes, if the precocious little girl heard her mother coming, Kayla liked to hide behind the old vinyl sofa that also occupied the space and then jump out to surprise Shandie.

But this time, when she looked behind the couch, she found nothing but dust bunnies.

Kayla wasn’t under the microwave stand or hiding beside the refrigerator, so Shandie opted to look in the next likeliest place her daughter might be—the bathroom.

“Kayla? Are you in there?” she said after knocking on the closed restroom door in the hallway outside the break room.

“No, she’s not in here,” came the answer from one of the other stylists.

“Have you seen her?” Shandie asked.

“She was in the break room when I came in here.” An answer that didn’t help Shandie at all.

“Okay, thanks,” she said, heading back to the main area of the salon.

The entire place was in the middle of the remodeling that was part of the reason Shandie had come to Thunder Canyon. Her cousin Judy had asked her to move to Montana and buy into the business. The Clip ’n Curl, Judy had said, needed new life breathed into it or it wouldn’t survive in the town’s new climate of change and growth.

Because of the construction, everything was in disarray—a manicure/pedicure area was being built, existing stations were crammed with anything that would fit under their sinks to clear other spaces for work, plumbing and electrical changes were being made, and plastic tarps hung from the ceiling to section off the work being done on new stations. It all made for a number of enticing hiding spots for a tiny three-year-old.

“Kayla?” Shandie repeated yet again, scanning the area. “Has anyone seen my daughter?”

The other stylist, who was coloring a customer’s hair, said she hadn’t, and the customer chimed in to concur.

From behind one of the tarps, the cabinetmaker said, “She’s not in here with me.”

Concern began a crawl up Shandie’s spine. “She didn’t leave the shop, did she?”

The stylist at work on the patron’s highlights said, “Not from the front. I’ve been out here since you picked her up from preschool and brought her in with you, and she hasn’t been back this way.”

“The bell over the door hasn’t gone off, either,” the customer contributed.

“But I don’t know about the alley door,” the stylist added. “Maybe you should check it.”

Shandie spun around and picked up her pace, hurrying from there through every possible nook and cranny, even glancing through the window that looked out onto the alley and the motorcycle shop on the opposite side of it. But there were no signs of her daughter.

“She has to be around somewhere,” Shandie muttered to herself. Then, in a louder, firmer voice, she said, “Kayla Jane Solomon, where are you?”